34.4Musi4107USEthisforpublication


  
© Elena Musi, Informal Logic, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2014), pp.417-
442. 

 
Evidential Modals at the Semantic-
Argumentative Interface: Appearance Verbs 
as Indicators of Defeasible Argumentation  
 
ELENA MUSI 
 
Università	
  della	
  Svizzera	
   italiana	
   (Istituto	
  di	
   Studi	
   italiani),	
  
Via	
  Lambertenghi	
  	
  10A	
  CH-­‐6904	
  	
  
Lugano	
  (Switzerland)	
  
elena.musi@usi.ch	
  
 
Abstract: This contribution aims at 
providing an argumentative method 
to account for epistemic modality 
and evidentiality. I claim that these 
two linguistic categories can work as 
semantic components of defeasible 
argumentative schemes based on 
classification processes. This kind of 
approximate reasoning is, in fact, 
frequently indicated by appearance 
verbs which signal that the inferred 
standpoint is conceived by the 
speaker as uncertain (epistemic 
value) due to the deceiving nature of 
perceptual data (evidential value). 
Drawing from an analysis at the 
semantic-argumentative interface, 
the way in which prototype theory 
sheds light on the processes of 
meaning construction underlying 
defeasible arguments from definition 
is also shown. 

Résumé: This contribution aims at 
providing an argumentative method 
to account for epistemic modality 
and evidentiality. I claim that these 
two linguistic categories can work as 
semantic components of defeasible 
argumentative schemes based on 
classification processes. This kind of 
approximate reasoning is, in fact, 
frequently indicated by appearance 
verbs which signal that the inferred 
standpoint is conceived by the 
speaker as uncertain (epistemic 
value) due to the deceiving nature of 
perceptual data (evidential value). 
Drawing from an analysis at the 
semantic-argumentative interface, 
the way in which prototype theory 
sheds light on the processes of 
meaning construction underlying 
defeasible arguments from definition 
is also shown. 

 
Keywords: appearance verbs, argument from definition, Argumentum Model 
of Topics,  epistemic modality, evidentiality defeasible reasoning, prototype 
theory, semantics-argumentation interface. 
 
 
1. Introduction  
 
This contribution proposes an argumentative method for 
analyzing epistemic modality and evidentiality1 commencing  
                                                
1 Evidentiality is the linguistic category which “refers to the reasoning 
processes that lead to a proposition” while epistemic modality “evaluates the 
likelihood that a proposition is true” (Cornillie 2009, p. 47). 



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from the interface between semantics and argumentation2.  
Starting from the analysis of appearance verbs, the aim is to 
show how their evidential and epistemic values can be mapped 
into the argumentative reconstruction of the reasoning they 
indicate. Appearance verbs frequently indicate defeasible 
argument schemes based on classification processes: they signal 
that the inferred standpoint is conceived by the speaker as 
uncertain (epistemic value) due to the deceiving nature of 
perceptual data which function as premises (evidential value). 
My working hypothesis is that a deep semantic analysis of 
appearance verbs is needed to shed light on the complexity of 
the processes of categorization exploited in plausible reasoning.  
The importance of semantics for a theory of argumentation has 
been recently recognized in the study of analytical 
reconstructions (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, van 
Eemeren 2010) and in the study of implicit premises (Rocci 
2005, Bigi and Greco Morasso 2012, Miecznikowski, Rocci and 
Zlatkova 2013 and Miecznikowski and Zlatkova, to appear). In 
particular, the role of the lexical Italian modals dovere (‘must’) 
and potere (‘can’) as argumentative indicators has been widely 
investigated by Rocci (2012, 2013) in the context of economical 
financial news.  
 The theoretical and methodological frameworks I refer to 
are the Congruity Theory approach (Rigotti and Rocci 2001, 
Rigotti 2005, Rigotti, Rocci and Greco 2006) for the semantic 
analysis and the Argumentum Model of Topics (Rigotti and 
Greco 2010) for argumentative reconstructions. The usefulness 
of these two models to tackle the semantic–argumentative 
interface is respectively explained in sections 2 and 3.  
 As a case study, I focus on the Italian verb apparire (‘to 
appear’) drawing on 31 occurrences of the verb contained in art 
exhibition reviews downloaded from the Italian site 
Mostreinmostra. The choice of exhibition reviews as a source of 
data is motivated by the argumentative nature of this text genre. 
As underlined by Miecznikowski (to appear), the aim of an 
exhibition review is to help readers decide whether that 
exhibition is well worth a visit or not. To this purpose, reviewers 
report their firsthand experience as an argument in support of 
the overall evaluation. In the case of exhibition reviews, the 

                                                
2 This study is part of the broader research project “From perception to 
inference. Evidential, argumentative and textual aspects of perception 
predicates in Italian”, supported by the Swiss National Foundation (grant 
n.141350, see http://www.perc-inferenza.ch) and directed by Johanna 
Miecznikowski and Andrea Rocci at USI (Università della Svizzera Italiana).   



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visual character of the reviewed object favours the occurrences 
of appearance verbs both in the description of the reviewer’s 
impression in front of the works of art and in evaluative 
utterances about the exhibition itself.  

The first section of the study is devoted to the semantic 
analysis, while the second part deals with argumentative 
reconstructions. In section 2, I explain why the verb apparire 
functions in its inferential uses, which have proved to be 
primarily abductive, as an indicator of defeasible argumentation. 
On the one hand, the verb presupposes a set of information 
sources in its semantic structure which signals the presence of 
premises from which a proposition is inferred (evidential value). 
On the other hand, it points to the fact that the inferred 
proposition is presented by the speaker as plausible, but not 
certain (epistemic-modal value). This lack of certainty can be 
traced back to the illusory nature of perception, which is at the 
basis of the critical questions that participants to the event raise 
from the so called argument from appearance (Walton 2006). 
The lexicalization of this type of categorization is compatible 
with a conceptualization of our processes of meaning 
construction as based on a principle of analogy and similarity 
more than on a principle of identity. On this basis, in section 4, 
after having described some basic principles of prototype theory, 
I propose two argumentative reconstructions based on the so-
called “argument from prototype definition” in order to show 
the explanatory power of this semantic theory for the analysis of 
defeasible arguments.3 

 
 
2. Apparire’s semantic analysis   
 
This section is dedicated to the identification of the participants 
in the event expressed by apparire (linguistic argument 
structure), on the basis of the “Congruity Theory”4 approach 
(Rigotti and Rocci 2001, Rigotti 2005, Rigotti, Rocci and Greco 
2006). Following this semantic-pragmatic theory, discourse 
units can be conceived in terms of predicative-argument 
                                                
3 Framenet is a free access lexical database elaborated by the International 
Computer Science Institute in Berkeley 
(https://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/fndrupal/).   
4  The term congruity traces back to the notion of symploké (<Greek 
“sympléko”, ‘interwining’) as used in Plato’ Sophist (261.d.4 – 262.e.2) 
where the philosopher metaphorically represents discourse as a living body 
which cannot be dismembered.  



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structures whose combination gives rise to meaningful verbal 
communication through language compositionality. This 
approach is pragmatic both in a broad and an etymological 
sense: it focuses on the relevance of contextual factors required 
to interpret the information encoded by linguistic lexicon and it 
considers verbal communication as action since the meaning of 
an utterance "coincides with its intended effects, that is to say 
with the change it brings about in the context-yet more precisely 
in the intersubjectivity of the interlocutors" (Rigotti 2005, p. 77).  

Predicates (< Latin praedicatum < Greek kategoria = 
kata, ‘about’ and agoreuo, ‘to speak’) are those actions, events, 
properties which speak about the mode of being of an argument. 
The class of arguments includes individuals, states of affairs, 
and events that are affected by those modes of being. The 
semantic structure of a predicate is characterized by two 
components: presuppositions, requirements that the predicate 
imposes on its argument places according to number, quality, 
and order (argument structure), and entailments, which refer to 
what occurs when the predicate is true of its arguments. The 
presuppositions are conditions of meaningfulness which 
characterize both the cases in which the predicate is affirmed 
and those in which the predicate is negated. Differently, the 
semantic implications of the predicate do not hold when the 
predicate is negated. 

The advantages offered by this framework for the study 
of the semantic- argumentative interface are twofold: on the one 
hand a semantic approach to argument structure, as opposed to a 
syntactic one (Hale and Keyser 2002), recognizes as arguments 
also elements which are not syntactically expressed but 
logically-semantically implied; these arguments are conditions 
necessary to interpret the meaning of the predicate and 
guarantee the text’s coherence. On the other hand, compared to 
other semantic approaches (Pustejovsky 1995), it highlights the 
interrelations between presuppositions and lexical meaning 
(entailments) enabling the reconstruction of inferential processes. 
The presuppositions triggered by the predicate function at a 
pragmatic level as Searlian felicity conditions of the utterance 
containing the predicate. In this way, the lexical predicate 
functions as a high level pragmatic predicate called a 
“connective predicate”, guaranteeing the coherence of the text it 
is part of. The applicability of such an approach in 
argumentative terms is straightforward: “the pragmatic 
conditions of argumentation and the logical requirements of the 
particular inference schemes employed are analyzed as part of 



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the presuppositions of the connective predicate at issue” (Rigotti 
2005, p. 75). The choice of adopting the Congruity Theory 
approach is justified by the fact that, compared to other 
approaches to discourse relations, it encompasses both the 
semantic and the pragmatic-argumentative level in a unified 
account.  

From the analysis of the 31 occurrences of the verb in 
the chosen corpus, two basic meanings of the verb have 
emerged. The first one is traceable to the etymon of the verb 
(apparire < Lat. apparēre ‘to come out, to become visible, to 
come to light’) indicating the appearance of an object entering 
the perceiver’s visual field: 
 

1. Poi un po’ di calma ed eccoti apparire davanti un paio 
di “pezzi da novanta” come la Madonna con il bambino, 
serafini e cherubini ed il Cristo morto, entrambi 
provenienti da Brera. (Review, Mostreinmostra, 
Exhibition: “Mantegna”, Verona) 

“Then, after having waited a bit, there appears in front of 
us a couple of ‘big pieces’ like the Madonna and child, 
seraphim and cherubim and the Dead Christ, both from 
Brera”. 

In these cases, apparire functions as a two place predicate 
where x1 is the object which appears, and x2 is the perceiver: 

 

Apparire (x1, x2) 

Presuppositions: 
x1: X

 
(x1) ∧ ¬see (x2, x1) t-1 

x2: animate (x2)  ∧ ∀y € (X(y) →◊a(x2,  see (x1,y)) ) 

Entailments  

see (x2, x1)t                       X: class of concrete, visible objects 
  
The predicate imposes constraints not only on the number, but 
also on the quality of the arguments: x1 has to belong to the class 
of concrete, visible objects which have not be seen by x2 at the 
moment of speaking; x2, in turn, must exist, be animate, and be 
capable of seeing the eventuality x1. Moreover, the semantics of 



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apparire as a percept oriented verb 5  presuppose that x1, 
positioned before or after the verb, works as the grammatical 
subject of the predicate. The presuppositions imposed by the 
predicate as represented in the scheme are hyperonyms of the 
characteristics of “us” and “a couple of big pieces”. When used 
as in example 1 the verb is attested in descriptive rather than 
argumentative contexts. The reviewer, in order to describe the 
exhibition, leads the reader along a fictive visit: the verb 
apparire is at the same time used to express the perceptual 
impact of a work of art and to introduce a new topic in the 
discourse universe.  
 In its other occurrences, especially in copulative 
constructions, the verb conveys an inferential value signalling 
that the proposition expressed by the speaker is based on a set of 
information sources. Indeed, this inferential meaning has been 
crosslinguistically recognized in studies (Col 2006, Cornillie 
2009, Gisborne 2007, Diewald and Smirnova 2010) about 
appearance verbs as markers of evidentiality.  
 As remarked upon by Rocci regarding necessity modals, 
evidentiality plays an important role in discourse relations since 
it “can constrain the interpretation of their immediate co-text 
allowing the addressee to establish an argumentative relation 
between the utterance in which they appear and co-textually 
recoverable evidence” (Rocci 2012, p. 2129). The nature of this 
relation has not been deeply investigated by linguists and lacks a 
systematic theoretical account. In this regard, I claim that the 
inferential relations in question can be classified as abductive, 
drawing from the following definition of abductive reasoning 
provided by Walton: “abductive reasoning is a kind of guessing 
by a process of forming a plausible hypothesis that explains a 
given set of facts or data” (2001, p. 143). The conclusion drawn 
from abductive inference is, hence, more fallible than those 
resulting from other kinds of inferences (inductive and 
deductive). In the literature, abductive inferences are considered 
to be the same as inferences to the best explanation (Harman 
1965, Josephson and Josephson 1994, Douven and Verbrugge 
2010) which are conceived as more or less likely depending on 
several factors. In the following sections I will show how 
appearance verbs, behaving as markers of evidentiality, impose 
constraints on the information sources at the basis of the uttered 
proposition. In pragmatic terms, the verb apparire, presupposing 

                                                
5 Percept oriented verbs differ from perceiver-oriented verbs (for example the 
verb to see), in which the perceiver occupies the subject position.  



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in its argument structure a set of information sources, gives the 
reader the instruction to look in the co-text for a set of premises 
at the basis of the uttered proposition p:  

2. è il caso di Fanny Churberg che realizza il dipinto 
Rocce di granito friabile (1871, Helsinki, Ateneumin 
Taidemuseo Suomen Kansalissgalleria) in cui la natura 
non affatto idilliaca appare invece brutale e diretta, nella 
scoscesità dei massi dipinti, nei giochi di luce ed ombra, 
e con l’effetto della profondità dato da un uso sapiente 
del bianco e del grigio. (Review, Mostreinmostra, 
Exhibition: “Munch e lo spirito del nord”, Udine) 
“It is the case of Fanny Churberg who painted friable 
Granite rocks (1871 Helsinki, Suomen Ateneumin 
Taidemuseo Kansalissgalleria) in which [nature, not 
idyllic at all, appears rather brutal and direct] proposition [in 
the steep boulders depicted in the play of light and 
shadow, and the effect of depth given by a wise use of 
white and gray] information source

” 
 
 Even if in 2, the information source is of a perceptual 
nature, the speaker does not directly witness a brutal nature but 
he infers that this impression matches the figurative intention of 
the painter from a series of depicted details. Since these details 
are overtly expressed, they function as intersubjective sources of 
information which the writer is invited to look at in order to 
understand and/or agree with the writer’s qualification. The 
reviewer’s communicative intention is probably to make the 
reader focus on the painting’s most salient peculiarities, which 
will be exploited as a ground to express an overall evaluation of 
the exhibition at the end of the review.  
 The role of the reader’s knowledge in making an 
interpretative hypothesis (abductive inference) is more apparent 
in the following example, in which the recognition of 
iconographical roots of the Dinner in the sixteenth’s century 
Lombard paintings is due to the reviewer’s personal artistic 
notions:  

 
3. Questa prima Cena appare debitrice della tradizione 
pittorica lombarda del Cinquecento […]: attorno ad una 
tavola imbandita, alla presenza di un oste, Cristo – 
giovane e imberbe – spezza il pane e col gesto 
benedicente si rivela ai due attoniti pellegrini che 
reagiscono al miracolo con accenti plateali. (Review, 
Mostreinmostra, Exhibition: “Caravaggio ospita 
Caravaggio”, Milano) 



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 “This first Dinner appears to be retraceable to the 
Lombard tradition of painting of the sixteenth century 
[...] around a dinner table, in the presence of an innkeeper, 
Christ - young and beardless –breaks the bread and with 
the gesture of blessing is  revealed to the two astonished 
pilgrims who react to the miracle with blatant accents.” 

 
 The semantic difference between the strictly perceptual 
use (see example 1) and the inferential uses of apparire is 
reflected in a difference both in the number and the ontological 
types of the presupposed argument places. Apparire’s argument 
structure in examples 2 and 3 can be formalized as follows:  
 

Apparire (x1, x2, x3, BDox) 

Presuppositions 

x1: eventuality (x1) ∧ Xn (x1) ∧ see (x2,  x1) 

x2: animate (x2)  ∧ ∀y € (X(y) →◊a(x2,  see (x1,y)) ) 

x3 : eventuality (x3) ∧ Xn’ (x3) 

BDox
 
: background set of presumptions associating eventualities 

of class Xn  with eventualities of class Xn’ 

Entailments  

□ (({px1} ∪
 
BDox) → px3)         Xn: class of eventualities which    

can be visually experienced  
                                                                                

The argument x2 is not overtly expressed in the text but it is 
presupposed by the semantics of the verb: working as an 
epistemic modal, apparire is performative and hence necessarily 
defined in relation to a human being who commits himself to the 
truth of the uttered proposition. The first argument has to be an 
eventuality of the class Xn which can be experienced by x1 
through the sense of sight. Ontologically speaking, it can be a 
concrete object, like in 2 and 3, or an event such as a football 
match or a theatre show. The violation of the condition imposed 
by the predicate on x1 would produce incongruity and hence 
nonsense (* “Music appears to be”). In example 3, x1 are the 
sources of information through which the speaker describes the 
painting with its iconographical features. The eventuality x3 
corresponds to what appears to x2 as a possible state of affairs. 
In its evidential-inferential uses, apparire functions as a 



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connective predicate signalling that the proposition 
corresponding to the occurrence of the eventuality x3 is inferred 
as a conclusion from a set of information sources which can be 
conceived of in argumentative terms as signs.  

However, the proposition denoting the eventuality x1 
alone does not suffice to allow the inferential process as the 
basis of the proposition asserting the appearance. To obtain px3, 
a second unstated premise which clarifies the relation between 
the sources of information and the conclusion must be supplied. 
In example 3, a reconstructed implicit premise would state that 
the iconographical features described by the author are typical of 
the Lombard Sixteenth century tradition of painting. What is 
presupposed in the argument structure of the verb is, hence, the 
existence of a class of presumptions associating the eventualities 
x1 and x3. The BDox argument, which reveals the modal nature of 
apparire, can be traced back to Kratzer’s (1981) Relative 
Modality 6  following which, modals are relational predicates 
whose components are prejacent (the proposition in scope) and 
a set of propositions called conversational background. The 
modal relation expressed by apparire is that of possibility which 
is defined by the compatibility of the prejacent with an 
epistemic conversational background. The plausibility of a 
possible worlds semantic account for apparire, is consistent 
with the fact that the verb seems to work as an operator at the 
propositional level. As noticed by Faller (2002, pp. 10-115), the 
so called challengeability test (Palmer 2001, Sweetser 1990), 
which consists in questioning, doubting, or rejecting the 
meaning of an element is the most reliable test to check if an 
evidential contributes to the meaning of the main proposition or 
not:  

4. Guardando all’affrettata stesura del colore, il dipinto 
appare incompleto  
 “Looking at the inaccurate application of the colour, the 
painting appears to be incomplete” 
a. Is that so? 
b. I agree 
c. I don’t believe it 

                                                
6 The interlinguistic usefulness of Relative Modality for a context dependent 
semantic account of different modal flavours has been highlighted in various 
studies (e.g. Rocci 2012, Faller 2011). 

 



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The antagonist’s reactions in 4(a-c) can be interpreted both as 
commenting on the truth of the proposition (the painting is 
incomplete) or that of the modal proposition (the painting 
appears to be incomplete). The antagonist could disagree with 
the fact that the way in which the colour is applied on the canvas 
entails that the painting is probably incomplete, claiming for 
example that an unrefined application of colour is a typical 
feature of that painter’s style. This property is inherent to 
evidential verbs: the use of a verbum putandi like ‘to think’ 
would not allow such an ambiguity, leaving only the truth of the 
embedded proposition as questionable. 

The verb apparire is not perfectly equivalent to a verbum 
putandi due to its evidential nature. The use of the verb next to 
an explicit declaration of the lack of sources of information on 
the part of the speaker, though acceptable, would in fact sound 
weird:  
 

5 a. ?Non so perché, ma il dipinto appare incompleto 
 “?I do not know why, but the painting appears to be 
incomplete  
 b. Non so perché, ma penso che il dipinto sia incompleto 
 “I do not know why, but I think the painting is incomplete”  

 
Another argument in support of the evidential character of the 
verb is its compatibility only with the expression of indirect 
evidentiality: as noticed with regard to example 2, differently 
from a verb like vedere, ‘to see’, the verb apparire never refers 
to a state of affairs where the experiencer has direct access to an 
event which he perceives visually at the moment of speaking.   

As argued in possible worlds semantics, the modalized 
sentence is false only when the ontological relation between the 
proposition and what the speaker knows is negated. This test 
shows that apparire is indeed an operator at the propositional 
level, whose truth value is connected to its inferential relation 
with the sources of information, but does not explain which 
elements the speaker’s degree of commitment depends on.  
The definition of the argument BDox as a set of presumptions 
reveals, in fact, the modal epistemic value intrinsic to the verb: 
apparire, compared to essere (‘to be’) assigns a lesser degree of 
certainty to the truth of what is asserted; in other words, even if 
the reviewer commits himself to the truth of the proposition, he 
signals at the same time that the uttered proposition expresses a 
state of affairs whose likelihood is judged on the basis of the 



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data available to him (x1), his knowledge and reasoning 
capacities (BDox).  

Formally speaking, this epistemic stance implies a 
semantic representation of apparire as a quantifier over possible 
worlds which is restricted by a conditional clause concerning the 
type of x the speaker is relying on and their relevance for the 
operation of classification. This conditional restriction selects 
the set of possible worlds in which the inferential relation 
between the sources of information and the asserted proposition 
is consistent: sentence 4 could, for example, be paraphrased as 
“provided that we have only visual evidence available and that 
the way in which colour is applied on the canvas is relevant in 
deciding if a painting has been finished, the not accurate 
application of the color is a signal that the painting was probably 
not finished”. The degree of possibility depends on the type of 
data at disposal and on our cognitive ways of experiencing the 
world.  

As shown in the next section the uncertainty conveyed 
by modal expressions correlates with the awareness, pointed out 
by fuzzy logic, that human reasoning is approximate rather than 
exact, especially when based on perceptual data. 

 
 

3. Defeasible arguments and reasoning from categorization 
 
To exemplify the mechanisms underlying fuzzy logic, Zadeh 
(1975, p. 408) presents the following syllogism: 

A1: Most men are vain  
A2: Socrates is a man 
A3: It is likely that Socrates is vain 
A’3: it is very likely that Socrates is vain 

 
The consequents A3 and A’3 are both possible consequents of 
premises A1 and A2 depending on the degree of approximations 
of the term most. Since the majority of men (but not all) are vain 
and Socrates is a man, it is possible/almost certain (but not 
certain) that Socrates is vain too.7  Similarly, the evidential-
                                                
7 It has to be noted that already in his Posterior Analytics Aristotle speaks 
about syllogisms “epì tò polú”, ‘for the most part’ (Lat. “plerumque”): 
“Every syllogism proceeds through premises which are either necessary or 
usual [epì tò polú]; if the premises are necessary, the conclusion is necessary 
too; and if the premises are usual, so is the conclusion” (I, 87b25). As 
underlined by Rescher (1964, p. 170) Aristotle’s theory of modal reasoning 
has its conceptual roots in the theory of scientific inference.  



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epistemic meaning of apparire signals that the proposition p 
refers to a possible state of affairs whose plausibility depends on 
the reliability of the SoAs (state of affairs) expressed in the 
premises, which are subjective in the sense that they are valid as 
far as the speaker knows.  

Even if direct sight is considered one of the most certain 
means of knowledge (Sweetser 1990, p. 33), inference based on 
perceptual data (e.g. 2, 3) can be misleading due to the fact that 
“a perceived object only approximates material objects, and that 
it may change its appearance as our perceptual information 
changes.” (van der Does and van Lambalgen 2000, p. 11). The 
fact that perceptions depend on the perceiver’s perspective and 
thus can be deceiving, is clearly shown by some occurrences of 
apparire: 
 

6. Le cavità che attraversano la composizione hanno la 
potenzialità di apparire come tetri spazi neri o come 
superfici pienamente scintillanti, secondo la disposizione 
della fonte luminosa. (Review, Mostreinmostra, 
Exhibition: “Ben Ormense per un instabile equilibrio”, 
Sacile) 
 “The cavities throughout the composition have the 
potential to appear as gloomy black spaces or as fully 
sparkling surfaces, according to the arrangement of the 
light source” 
7. L’ambiente appare immutato nella sua consuetudine 
espositiva, un classicismo narrativo che traghetta lo 
sguardo attraverso i secoli. Arrivati a metà del corridoio 
d’entrata però, una struttura color rosso vivo regala 
nuovi interrogativi: è il Concetto spaziale di Lucio 
Fontana (1960), l’idropittura creata con tagli e buchi 
che apre la mostra. (Review, Mostreinmostra, 
Exhibition: “Burri e Fontana a Brera”, Milano) 
 “The environment appears unchanged in its customary 
exhibition, a classical narrative that draws the gaze 
through the centuries. Once in the middle of the entrance 
corridor, however, a bright red structure gives new 
questions: it is the Lucio Fontana’s spatial concept (1960), 
the water-based painting with cuts and holes that opens 
the show” 

In example 6, the “omniscient reviewer” explains that cavities 
could appear differently to visitors depending on the light’s 
conditions. In 7, instead, the “filter” influencing the perception 
is not external, but part of the perceptual experience itself: if at 



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the beginning of the visit the environment seems unchanged, the 
appearance of Fontana’s work of art changes the situation. 
Generally speaking, our perception is affected by imprecise 
visual information and lack of knowledge which make us draw 
plausible, but not absolutely valid inferences. In argumentation 
theory, this gap between the real object and the perceived object 
underlying appearances, is accounted for in terms of defeasible 
argumentation schemes. In particular, Walton, Reed and 
Macagno (2008) describe the standpoints asserted by inference 
from visual data as conclusions driven from the so called 
appearance argument scheme: 
 

Premise: This object looks like it could be classified 
under verbal category C. Conclusion. Therefore, 
this object can be classified under verbal category 
C. (Walton, Reed and Macagno 2008, p. 345)  

 
As observed by the above scholars, the argument from 
appearance dates back to Greek philosophers as an instance of 
plausible reasoning, that is to say the reasoning “based on 
appearances, meaning propositions that appear to be true and 
have standing as acceptable premises in a rational inference used 
to draw a conclusion, even though the inference can later turn 
out to be erroneous” (Walton 2006, p. 320). Plausible reasoning 
does not include only reasoning based on observational data, but 
every argument based on generalizations subject to exceptions. 
In the light of this, it seems that apparire, due to its evidential-
epistemic semantics, functions in its inferential uses as a marker 
indicating that the type of reasoning at work is a defeasible one: 
a proposition appears to the speaker to be true, even if he does 
not know it is veridical.  

Data analysis has shown that apparire usually indicates 
what in Pragma-Dialectics is called symptomatic argumentation 
since “the property attributed to the referent in the argument is 
put forward as being a symptom of the property attributed to it 
in the standpoint” (Hitchcock and Wagemans 2011, p. 186). In 
particular, the process involved is that of classification where “x 
appears to be y” on the basis of the identification by the 
perceiver of some properties of y in x. At this point, the research 
question I would like to answer is: which component does the 
defeasibility of the argumentative reasoning have its roots in? 

In this regard, dealing with arguments from classification, 
Walton and Macagno (2010) state that the “Argument from 
Criteria to Verbal Classification” (which fits the kind of 



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reasoning exploited in our case of study) is defeasible due to the 
generalization made in the major premise: 
 
MAJOR PREMISE: If X has the characteristics A, B, C…then X 
is Q 
MINOR PREMISE: Event or object X has the characteristics A, 
B, C  
CONCLUSION: Therefore, event or object X is Q. 
(Walton and Macagno 2010, p. 37) 
 
One of the critical questions at issue is: what evidence is there 
that the characteristics A, B, C are sufficient conditions to 
classify X as Q? In fact, it would be possible that X, even if 
showing the characteristics A, B, and C is not, in a real state of 
affairs, a member of the class Q. Following this scheme, the 
likelihood that the inferred proposition is true depends on the 
degree of defeasibility of the major premise. As explained in the 
next section, I consider the relevance of the characteristics for 
the operation of classification as a subjective, context-bound 
matter of the experiencer whose degree of commitment to the 
undergone categorization is mirrored by the semantic structure 
of the inferential connections on which the locus is based. To 
understand the condition of the validity of these connections, I 
think it is useful to draw attention to the mechanisms enabling 
the inferential relation itself. The fact that some characteristics 
are interpreted by the speaker as signs from which to infer a 
possible categorization seems to indicate that our processes of 
meaning construction work through principles of analogy and 
similarity, more than on a principle of identity. Recognizing 
graduality and subjectivity as properties inherent to 
categorization has been essential to explaining linguistic 
phenomena grounded on perception - such as metaphor. As 
underlined by Albertazzi (2010) in her studies about perception 
and inference, it is impossible to account for metaphorical 
categorization in substantial terms (e.g., by genus and species) 
even though "when subjective experiences are given names 
which also apply to perceptual facts, this does not happen in a 
random fashion" (p. 360).  

The inferences from objective reality at the basis of the 
expression of appearances pertain to the epistemological 
relationships between categories of mind and categories of the 
real world. As underlined by Lakoff (1982), categories of the 
mind do not directly mirror categories which are supposed to 



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exist objectively in the world, but they depend on "experiential 
aspects of human psychology" (Lakoff 1982, p. 99).  
The evidential-epistemic uses of the verb apparire reveal that 
the speaker qua experiencer is aware that perception is not the 
result of an inference from objective reality but it is the product 
of an awareness process based on external visual data.  

This non-objectivist view of categories has been deeply 
supported by prototype theory which was elaborated in the mid-
1970s as a reaction to the fact that "much work in philosophy, 
psychology, linguistics and anthropology assumes that 
categories are logical bounded entities, membership in which is 
defined by an item's possession of a simple set of criterial 
features, in which all instances possessing the criterial attributes 
have a full and equal degree of membership" (Rosch and Mervis 
1975, pp. 573-574). 

The basic proposal of the theory is to focus on the degree 
of representativeness of members of a category rather than on 
the membership status itself, due to the fuzzy boundaries 
characterizing categories. This perspective is especially fruitful 
for the analysis of the inferential epistemic meanings of 
apparire where the speaker is asserting the belonging of what he 
perceives to a category, but he is at the same time questioning 
the relevance of the reasons underlying his operation of 
classification.  

The notion of prototype from psychology has developed 
in different directions depending on the field. As far as 
linguistics is concerned, prototype theory has developed in 
contrast to an idea in transformational grammar, namely that 
semantic structure in natural languages can be studied as a 
language-specific module independently from the encyclopaedic 
knowledge that people possess and that the semantic extension 
of a concept may be defined through a list of features 
indispensable for its definition (Geeraerts 1989). The 
interrelation of encyclopaedic and semantic knowledge 
envisaged by prototype theory turns out to play an important 
role at the argumentative level: readers are able to understand 
the author's use of specific terms to describe what appears to 
him in virtue of the sharing of some encyclopaedic world 
knowledge which is present in the author's lexicon. 

Following Geeraerts (1989, pp. 146-147), prototypical 
categories are characterized by four essential properties: absence 
of a set of criteria of necessary and sufficient attributes, 
presence of a radial set of clustered and overlapping meanings, 
degrees of representativeness, and blurred edges.  



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One of the most debated aspects of prototype theory 
pertains to the parameters used to define the degrees of 
representativeness of a member. The most representative 
exemplar of the category (prototype) is conceived as the one that 
has the majority of common features with the other members of 
the category and shares the minor number of features with 
members belonging to other categories. The prototype is hence 
considered as the most salient member since it presents most of 
the features normally attributed to a category.   

However, the motivations at the basis of the 
identification of the central traits of a category can be cognitive, 
cultural, as well as perceptual and are, hence, hard to identify 
without making reference to people's judgements. For this 
reason, prototypes have been operationally defined, collecting 
the people's opinions about the goodness of membership in a 
category (Rosch 1978). The occurrences of the verb apparire 
are instances of judgments of the experiencer about the 
membership of the perceived object in a category:  the sources 
of information semantically presupposed by apparire can be 
conceived as the traits that the experiencer considers relevant for 
its reasoning from classification. On the other hand, the 
uncertainty expressed by the epistemic value of the verb gives 
the reader information about the saliency that the experiencer 
attributes to those traits.  

The explanatory power of the prototype model for an 
argumentative account of evidentiality and epistemic modality 
lies in the recognition of a link between the strength of 
arguments from definition and the quality of the characteristics 
involved: if the features attributed to the object are perceived by 
the experiencer as central traits of the category, their belonging 
to the category will be presented as more certain than if they are 
peripheral. 

As noted by Walton and Macagno (2010), in our 
everyday experience we have to rely on defeasible evidence and 
limited knowledge in order to categorize what we perceive. 
When we visit an exhibition our reasoning in approaching works 
of art functions as a heuristic, a temporary way to solve 
problems of categorization. In this perspective, the basic 
principles of prototype theory provide a useful tool to analyse 
heuristics of this kind.  
 
 
 
 



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4. The argument from prototype definition 
 
The Argumentum Model of Topics (Rigotti and Greco, 2010) is 
an approach to the study of argument schemes based on the 
combination of a procedural and a material component: “The 
procedural component is based on the semantic-ontological 
structure [locus], which generates the inferential connection 
[maxim] from which the logical form of the argument is 
derived; the material component integrates into the argument 
scheme the implicit and explicit premises bound to the 
contextual common ground” (Rigotti and Greco 2010, p. 489). 
In particular, the material component includes two components: 
endoxa (major premise), which makes reference to common 
knowledge, and datum (minor premise), a factual premise which 
specifies the realization in discourse of the minor premise of the 
logical form.  

Compared to other approaches to argument schemes (e.g. 
Pragma-Dialectical approach), the AMT Model, taking into 
account the level of material premises, makes it possible to 
explain the applicability of the inferential connection at work 
(maxim) to the actual context of the argumentation. The AMT 
Model, guaranteeing the context-boundedness of arguments, is a 
useful tool to analyse the argument schemes under question: the 
degree of defeasibility of the standpoint depends on the 
implementation of the maxim in the material component. 
Moreover, the partition of the material component into two 
levels mirrors the semantic components at the basis of 
apparire’s semantic structure which play a major role in the 
building up of inferences: the endoxa corresponds to the 
expression of the perceiver’s knowledge about the relevance of 
the data in drawing the inference (see BDox section 3) and the 
datum to the eventuality experienced by the perceiver.  

In this section I propose two argumentative 
reconstructions of apparire’s inferential uses modeled on the 
AMT Y-like structures.  
Reconstruction a: 
 

8. Mirko Basaldella è invece più stilizzato, più sintetico 
nell’esprimersi della sua sensibilità d’artista. Suoi sono 
il Mino danzante (1967) e il Sacerdote (1969): il primo 
presenta forme accostate lineari e rotonde, il secondo più 
ieratico e solenne, appare quasi un totem nel suo 
costruirsi piano su piano in scaffalature bronzee che 
lasciano però al loro interno delle aperture a mezzaluna 



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quasi a suggerire che la salita verso un qualsiasi credo è 
comunque composta da una globalità di linee che si 
intersecano fra loro e dove possono dipanarsi le vicende 
umane. (Review, Mostreinmostra, Exhibition: “I 
Basaldella. Dino, Mirko e Afro”, Udine) 

“Mirko Basaldella is more stylized, more concise in 
expressing his sensibility as an artist. The Dancing Mino 
(1967) and Priest (1969) are two of his works: the first 
presents linear and round juxtaposed forms, the second 
more solemn and hieratic, [it appears almost as a 
totem]proposition [in his building up floor upon floor of 
bronze shelving which, however, leaves within themselves 
openings with a crescent shape as if to suggest that the 
ascent to any creed is still made up of a whole series of 
lines that intersect each other and where they can unravel 
human stories]source of information”. 

 

 
Figure 1.  Locus from prototype definition 

 
In 8, the speaker, being exposed to the work of art entitled 
“Priest” in the exhibition, abductively infers that the sculpture 
by Mirko Basaldella is a totem. Looking at the description of the 
shape of the "Priest", it is plausible to claim that the speaker is 
exploiting an argument from definition by parts and whole 
relying only on visual sources of information. However, the 
relative proposition through which the speaker further specifies 
the juxtaposition of the bronze shelves as suggesting the ascent 



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to a creed, makes clear that his process of categorization is 
based on the identification both of concrete and abstract 
properties. The speaker makes reference to a supposed function 
of the forms because a totem is a superordinate highly culturally 
bounded category which can be represented by different types of 
objects with different shapes, depending on the cultural context. 
Hence, visual data, although being immediately accessible 
through the sense of sight, are very poor elements for classifying 
an object as a "totem". On the other hand, functional properties 
are more central traits of the category since they are intercultural 
and they normally belong to intersubjective world knowledge. 
Even if relying both on sensorial and functional clues justifying 
the inclusion of the "Priest" in the category "totem", the 
standpoint inferred from this argument scheme from definition 
is presented by the speaker as quite defeasible through the 
addition of the adverb quasi (‘almost’) after apparire.  

The low level of commitment expressed by the speaker 
regarding the uttered proposition mirrors his awareness of an 
addition filter imposed on perception by the very nature of 
artistic experiences: when seeing a work of art, the perceptual 
process of the visitor is mediated by the artist's representative 
intentions which cannot in any way be directly accessed by the 
visitor. Since the “Priest” is indeed an artifact, there could be a 
non-measurable gap between the function of the object as 
perceived and its function as conceived by the artist. In the light 
of this, the functional properties of the totem recalled by the 
author function in the proposed argumentative reconstruction as 
peripheral properties revealing that the saliency of the trait is 
highly context-bounded.  
 
Reconstruction b: 
 

9. Visitare una monografica su Piet Mondrian, oggi, non 
è cosa facile. Richiede uno sforzo. Quella pittura pura, 
così maledettamente oggettiva, scientifica, sembra 
lontana dalla sensibilità attuale, maggiormente incline a 
forme artistiche più espressioniste o a un astrattismo 
irrazionale, legato a oscuri automatismi psicologici. Ci 
sembra più agevole fruire di un’arte che induca 
turbamento più che riflessione, coinvolgimento più che 
ragionamento. Forse ciò è dovuto a una presunta 
frattura, operata da un certo punto in poi, tra arte e 
scienza. E l’arte di Piet Mondrian sembra voler 
recuperare questa lacerazione. Appare quindi una bella 
scommessa quella fatta dal Centre Pompidou a Parigi, 



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promotore di una grande retrospettiva sul maestro 
olandese, curata da Brigitte Leal. (Review, 
Mostreinmostra, Exhibition: “Mondrian/De Stijl”, Paris) 

“[To visit a monograph about Piet Mondrian, today, is 
not easy. It requires an effort. That pure painting, so 
damned objective and scientific, seems far away from the 
current sensitivity, which is more inclined to 
expressionist artistic forms or to an irrational abstraction 
tied to dark psychological automatisms. It seems easier to 
benefit from an art that induces perturbation rather than 
reflection, involvement more than reasoning. Perhaps this 
is due to an alleged breach, made from a certain point 
onwards, between art and science. And the art of Piet 
Mondrian seems to want to recover this laceration]sources of 
information . [This, therefore, appears a real bet, the one 
made by the Centre Pompidou in Paris]proposition , the 
promoter of a retrospective on the Dutch master, curated 
by Brigitte Leal”. 

The argumentation exploited by the speaker in order to infer that 
the monograph about Piet Mondrian is a real bet is based on a 
Datum which rather than being a piece of evidence is a 
prediction supported by a sub-argumentation. For this reason, 
two Y-reconstructions are proposed. The first reconstruction 
mirrors the reasoning through which the speaker forecasts that 
the monograph will attract few visitors on the basis of his 
knowledge about people’s tastes. The use of the impersonal 
form in describing the ‘current sensitivity’ with regard to art 
makes us understand that the writer is reporting the goals 
driving peoples’ decision-making process for going to an 
exhibition.  

In other words, the author is reconstructing the pragmatic 
reasoning underlying the event “going to an exhibition” which is 
intentionally caused by human subjects on the basis of the 
realization of their purposes. The intentionality trait called into 
question makes us understand that the locus exploited by the 
author is that from final cause which, different from the locus 
from the efficient cause, necessarily belongs to the ontological 
frame of human action. This locus, as shown in what follows, 
“focuses on the relation connecting the end (goal, purpose) of an 
action with the action itself” (Rigotti 2008, p. 566): 

 



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Figure 2.  Locus from the final cause 
 

The word "bet" is defined as designating "an act of risking a 
sum of money against someone else's on the basis of the 
outcome of a future event, such as the result of a race or a game" 
(The New Oxford Dictionary of English). In contemporary 
English and Italian the term is metaphorically used to generally 
encode "risky events", even if the feature "risky" is not per se 
distinctive in the semasiological structure of "bet". 
 The standpoint is an argumentatively justified 
presumption which becomes the minor premise of the following 
argumentative reasoning from prototype definition: 
 

 
Figure 3.. Locus from prototype definition 

 



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"risky" is not per se distinctive in the semasiological structure of 
"bet". The exhibition of Piet Mondrian shares some features 
with the frame of wagering to which the concept of "bet" 
belongs (in FrameNet the wagering frame is defined as follows: 
"A gambler commits an asset to a prediction that an uncertain 
situation will have a particular outcome (or class of 
outcomes)"): the organizers have invested some money on its 
preparation and the flow of visitors in not measurable at the 
moment of speaking and, thus, uncertain.  

However, the consecutive connective "therefore", which 
links the sources of information to the proposition containing 
apparire, signals that the speaker classifies the exhibition as a 
bet primarily because of its risky outcome, using the term 
metaphorically. Moreover, the speaker's definition of the 
monograph about Piet Mondrian not only as a bet, but as a real 
bet (bella scommessa) entails that risk is conceived by the 
speaker as a non-discrete concept whose graduality affects the 
belonging of an event to the category of bet. Since the more 
risky the outcome of an event is, the more intense is a bet 
stipulated on its realization, the low probability of the happening 
of an event is a central property of the category “bet”. Therefore, 
the forecast expressed in the Datum determines that the 
exhibition’s belonging to the category of a bet is well grounded.  

The final conclusion in 9. is less defeasible than the one 
in 8. because of the different quality of the properties called into 
question in the maxim (peripheral vs. central properties). 

Nevertheless, the use of apparire instead of the verb to 
be recalls for us the uncertain veridicality of the conclusion, 
inherited from the defeasibility of the Datum which is a 
presumption.   
 
 
5. Conclusion  
 
The analysis of the semantic-argumentative interface sketched 
out in this paper has shown the relevance that a semantic theory 
may have for a deep understanding of defeasible reasoning. On 
the backdrop of Congruity Theory, I have formalized the 
semantic structure of the Italian verb of appearance apparire in 
its inferential uses: the proposition inferred is the result of a set 
of information sources and of a set of background presumptions 
which are both arguments linguistically presupposed by the verb. 
At the argumentative level, these two lexical arguments function 
as premises from which the conclusion is drawn. The verb 



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apparire, due to its epistemic nature, marks not only the 
presence of an inferential reasoning, but signals also that the 
kind of reasoning at work is a defeasible one. As shown by 
fuzzy logic, the degree of defeasibility of the conclusion is 
directly proportional to the degree of defeasibility of the 
premises.  
 As far as our data are concerned, the arguments exploited 
in defeasible reasoning have been shown to be symptomatic 
arguments and, in particular, arguments from definition. As 
indicated by the gap between perceived entities vs. real entities 
in our experience of the world, perceivers do not classify objects 
on the basis of a set of predefined specific features, but their 
process of categorization is gradual, subjective, and affected by 
multiple factors. In the two y-like structures proposed as 
exemplary argumentative reconstructions, the defeasible 
premise is the Datum. The advantage offered by the application 
of prototype semantic theory is the identification of a connection 
between the degree of defeasibility of the conclusion and the 
quality of the properties taken into account in the maxim 
(central vs. peripheral properties).  

In other words, the defeasibility of the standpoint reflects 
the perceiver’s judgement on the goodness of membership about 
what he sees in a category. Starting from the methodological 
issue addressed in this paper, further research is needed to test if 
the locus from prototype definition is an ontological relation 
used in inferential configurations activated by other evidential-
epistemic verbs cross-linguistically.  
 
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the two anonymous 
reviewers, Johanna Miecznikowski, Andrea Rocci Giovanni 
Damele, Fabrizio Macagno and Michael Baumtrog for their very 
helpful comments and suggestions on previous drafts of this 
paper. 
 
 
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